


Persuading Violet Merville

by tepidspongebath



Series: Seduction [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Fix-It, I'm not sure if this counts as a fix-it fic, If you count constructing an alternate reality to TFP a fix-it, M/M, Not S4 Compliant, Pining, Post-Episode: s04e02 The Lying Detective, Story: The Adventure of the Illustrious Client, Story: The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax, perhaps it does
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 01:25:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9359129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tepidspongebath/pseuds/tepidspongebath
Summary: Sherlock Holmes would rather not be trying to break up an engagement. There's the disappearance of travel blogger Frances Carfax to keep him occupied, as well as the thornier, more important problem of getting John Watson to move back into 221B Baker Street. But when it's a client he can't refuse, the fiance turns out to be a murderer anyway, and John seems to be inexplicably interested, persuading Violet Merville to change her marital plans might just be worth his while.A retelling ofThe Adventure of the Illustrious Client, ruthlessly mish-mashed withThe Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax.





	1. John Watson Abroad - Anatomy Walking Around - the Hazards of Ignoring Transcontinental Phone Calls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm letting you know off the bat that the first part of this chapter is an updated version of [Finding Frances Carfax](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1086808)!

To begin with, Sherlock Holmes was not dead. Quite the opposite of the proverbial doornail.

Because he was not, in fact, deceased despite all that had happened, he was a lot of other things in the present tense. _Consulting detective_ still applied, of course – there’d be no changing that, not for a very long time. And to that John Watson would readily add _brilliant_ and _amazing_ and _devastatingly clever_. Those were the easy ones. _Remarkable_ followed quickly enough. _Incandescent_ was applicable too, though it was less obvious and more poetic, which Sherlock would sneer at. _Forceful_ could be considered a positive attribute, unless, depending on how it was applied, it tipped over into _overbearing._ Still, John would concede that Sherlock was _a force for the public good_ (because it was largely true, once you got around the fact that most members of the public wanted to punch him in the face once they actually met him), as long as he could also call him _mad, insufferable,_ and _too bloody clever for his own good_.

Currently, Sherlock Holmes was also briskly and efficiently stripping off his clothes.

It wasn’t anything John hadn’t seen before (being no stranger to the male body, or the male body in locker rooms, or even Sherlock’s male body in particular) and it actually wasn’t that hard to look away (the man was going through the singularly un-arresting motions of shaking a trouser leg off his ankle). The tricky part, thought John as he tugged at the hem of his jumper, was finding somewhere safe to look. Almost everyone else in the room was engaged in the same activity or the opposite, though somehow similarly intimate, act of putting their clothes back on.

It was giving him the screaming willies.

This wasn’t what John had in mind when Sherlock said he knew exactly what to do while they waited for their flight back to London. He had been all for checking into a hotel for a few hours, or, failing a nice sleep in a proper bed, he wouldn’t have said no to a kip in the airport lounge. But, no, Sherlock _would_ drag him to a bloody _spa_. A bloody _jjimjilbang_ in _South Korea_ where, apparently, you stripped to the skin and walked around starkers until you had a bath that you shared with what looked like several hundred other naked men. That he was the only one who seemed to mind just made John feel like even more of a chump.

“You could have warned me, you know,” he said. Talking helped a bit. Talking was a distraction. It was better than pretending to be endlessly fascinated by the ceiling.

“I didn’t think you’d mind. We’ve been to spas before.” That was true. For someone who dismissed most of his bodily functions as mere transport, Sherlock was rather keen on establishments that specialized in pampering the said body-which-was-for-transport, and he’d taken John along to several of them. John usually ended up enjoying himself, not being above admitting that he liked his creature comforts, but…

“Not this kind. Not where they didn’t have towels big enough to wrap around your waist.” To be fair they _had_ been given towels. And the towels were white and clean and fluffy, and might have lent decency to a hand puppet. The narrow wooden lockers didn’t help either: the doors were nowhere near wide enough to hide behind. John looked at his watch. “I could just wait outside.”

“On the hard benches they have in the lobby for at least six hours? I don’t think so. You’ll be even more cross at the end of it.”

“Or I could head on to the airport.”

“You’ve come this far, John. You won’t die of culture shock.”

“Oh, stop it. You’re one to talk about culture shock.” John took advantage of his rising pique and pulled off his jumper. It wasn’t usually him who acted the part of an out-of-sorts toddler, but he couldn’t help feeling that the world would be so much better after he’d had a nap. Or a large bag of sweets. He went on, words muffled by the wool as he pulled it over his head, “ _You’re_ not the one who spent all of last week bouncing around Southeast Asia looking for a girl who looks like almost every other local there. And I _know_ she’s as English as the pigeons that crap on Lord Nelson, but you’d be surprised at how little difference that makes.

“And all those languages – I’ve been abroad before, but I’ve always had time to at least _look_ at a phrase book before I went. You do know there’s only so much Google Translate can do, right?”

“I caught up with you in Thailand,” said Sherlock smoothly, turning to look at John with the wide-eyed innocence of a man who could probably learn a language in under four hours. He still had his shirt on, even if half the buttons were undone, and, now that he’d straightened up, it was covering all the significant bits.

“Yeah, you did. Pretending to be a bloody Frenchman.” John shook his head and started reluctantly to pluck at his own buttons. Sherlock had shown up in time to stop one of the missing woman’s friends from doing permanent damage to John’s face, after John had asked some pretty sharp questions about her whereabouts. He’d given John hell for bungling the investigation because _clearly_ the man hadn’t been involved in the disappearance of Frances Carfax, any _idiot_ could see that. Well, all right, maybe it had been a little mild to count as having been given hell, but Sherlock had been infernally and witheringly superior over the matter all the same. “It wasn’t what I had in mind when you offered me the free trip to Asia.”

“You knew it was for a case.”

“Yes. I knew. You made a point of telling me before you packed me in the cab to Heathrow. Though what you said was basically, ‘Fancy a trip to Asia, John? Here, have these free tickets and some spending money. Oh, and while you’re there, you’ll have to find Frances Carfax – it’ll be like playing _Where’s Waldo_ , only she won’t have the striped jumper.’”

That made Sherlock laugh. It was one of the best things about being with Sherlock again, that laugh, and John half-naked in a public place in a foreign country at the end of a very long week, found himself joining in, just because he could.

“I’m completely knackered,” he said, trying to make his clothes fit in a locker that was mostly filled with an overlarge backpack. “I don’t know how you manage to stay up, and you live on air and coffee.” He sighed and started to undo his belt, doing his best to look past Sherlock _and_ the other man undressing several lockers down. “And I know it’s all just anatomy. I’m just not used to this much anatomy walking around all at once.”

The corner of Sherlock’s mouth quirked upwards in a sort of half smile. “It is different when it’s not on a slab, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Or at the surgery. Doesn’t help that you’re looking.”

Sherlock raised his eyebrows in an affronted _No I’m not_ and began to make a show of arranging his own considerably smaller case in his locker. Somewhere in the depths of it, his phone began to ring. John didn’t ask what that was about, being sure that he’d find out anyway, and was considerably surprised when the consulting detective did _not_ answer his mobile, electing to ignore the ringing and give his bag a vicious shake as if that would shut it up.

“You’re not going to get that?”

“No.”

“It could be about the case.”

“The Carfax one? I doubt it. We’ve exhausted all the leads here, even if you did bungle the bit about the vacationing missionary and his wife, and everything says she made it safely back to the UK.”

John ignored that. Anyone could have seen that that Australian couple had been up to no good; it wasn’t his fault that they’d been up to nothing more sinister in this country other than cheating at poker. “Don’t you have anything else on?” he asked, and immediately regretted his choice of words as Sherlock slipped off his shirt so that he had nothing on at all. The man had no shame. John's vision was filled with a trim chest, a small, neat scar that belied the damage behind it, and a trail of dark hair leading downward from the navel to... _don't look down, don't look down, don't look down_. He tried to keep his eyes on Sherlock’s left ear. “I mean, wasn’t that why you sent me looking for her? Because you had other things to see to?”

“Nothing that would require a transcontinental phone call.”

“It might be important. Seeing it is, as you say, a transcontinental phone call.”

Again that half-smile. “Still quaint. Very charming, really it is, but it can wait till we get back.” Sherlock shut the locker with decisive click, snapped the key on its elastic band around his wrist.

“You’re not even going to look?”

“If it’s really important, they’ll call again. Come along, John, we don’t have much time. Off with your pants.”

 

* * *

 

Eventually, John gave up on the towel. Letting it go was a bit of a wrench, but while it would have done very nicely for the rabbit or guinea pig that wanted to hitchhike its way across the galaxy, it was woefully inadequate as far as providing crotch cover for ex-army doctors went. He abandoned it after the prerequisite shower (after the rugby lads at university, that bit was easy), and as soon as he was sure he could get a new one if he needed it. Besides, he knew where _his_ towel was, the old blue one at the bottom of his backpack in his locker, so that was all right.

The funny thing was, once he’d done that, the public nudity became a bit easier. Just a bit, mind, because John was only willing to get so comfortable, but when everyone else was naked, it didn’t seem to matter that you were missing your clothes as well. It became, as it were, a different kind of normal, even if he and Sherlock were drawing the occasional brief glance ( _maybe it was that they were foreigners, maybe it was the scars_ ). If he didn’t quite manage to stride along without a care in the world like Sherlock was doing, well, it wasn’t him who was in the habit of lurking about Baker Street in a sheet, sans pants. It was also hard to act nonchalant when he was walking two steps behind Sherlock's bare bum. _In motion_.

When he got into the water, though, it all suddenly became worth it.

John made no bones about the fact that he liked his baths. Baths were wonderful. It wasn’t just that they got you clean – if you just wanted _clean_ a shower could serve the purpose with arguably less fuss. But there was simply something magical about sinking into warm, fragrant water at the end of a long day, and these were, without exaggeration, the best warm waters John had had the pleasure of sinking into.

It didn’t even matter that he had to share this bath with other people.

Well, perhaps it did matter that he had to share it with Sherlock, who sank into the water with a frankly pornographic sound and _lounged_ as if he were posing for a tasteful soft-core photo shoot. Eventually, when he was feeling braver about wandering off on his own, he left Sherlock to his soaking while he went off in search of a colder pool before he embarrassed himself without even a tiny towel to hide behind. He briefly considered the one kept at 4°C, but decided that he was not so far gone yet and that his bad shoulder would thank him for trying one of those pools with the massaging jets. It was the best decision he’d made on this trip.

He did keep his eyes on Sherlock, though, not wanting to lose him amongst all the other naked men, so he saw it through the steam when one of the bath attendants approached him carrying a phone. And he watched as Sherlock waved him away, indicating his refusal to take the call in very definite terms. This meant he was still watching when Sherlock rose out of the water like a minor sea god with his wet hair wrapped in his own minuscule towel, and he had to look away as the man approached the pool he was in for fear of being blinded by what John was now ready to acknowledge as nearly divine beauty.

“Another call?” he asked, when Sherlock slipped into the space next to him with the kind of sigh he usually reserved for the third nicotine patch.

“Not important.”

“I’m starting to think it might be.”

“It may be a matter of life or death, or it may be some fussy, self-important fool. Either way, it'll have to wait till we get home. There’s nothing I can do about it while I’m five thousand miles away, and it is pointless to worry about anything until I have all the data.”

“Then it’ll have to wait till after I tidy the flat,” said John, half to himself. “I don’t think I even did the laundry before I left - my jumpers might be sentient by the time I get back. I might have to pay them rent.”

“Mmm.”

That contented hum was the last thing he got out of Sherlock for a while. Specifically, until Sherlock tapped him on the shoulder and told him it was time they got out of the hot water, lest they pass out and miss their flight. Leaving the bath felt a tiny bit like leaving a warm, watery slice of heaven, but it was something of a relief to put on clothes again (the spa-issue pyjamas, which were cotton and loose and comfy as anything) and head out into an area where everyone else was wearing clothes as well.

Feeling cleaner than he ever had in his life, John was prepared to make a beeline for the cozy-looking chairs in the common area, but Sherlock guided him to a space where the patrons were lounging about on the floor. The actual floor. The actual _heated_ floor. John, who hated few things more than a cold floor in the morning, wished he could wrap it up and take it home.

“ _Ondol_ heating - traditionally wide, flat stones under the floor baked by a cleverly directed fire, but in a modern facility like this, hot water pipes probably do the trick. Ancient technology, and incredibly efficient. Better than a kip in the airport lounge, isn’t it, John?” said Sherlock, settling onto the warm tiles.

“Oh, you know you’re right.” John lay down next to him, keeping about a foot of space between them. “You do realize we’re more likely to miss our flight now? I don’t see myself wanting to get up any time soon.”

“We can always book another one.” Sherlock’s voice was slow, deep, and as lazy as honey dripping off the comb. John turned his head to watch him for a bit. His eyes were already closed, his chest rising and falling with deep, even breaths: he may not have been asleep, but he was definitely resting. It was rare to see him relax so completely, and John was glad that at least one good thing had come of following Frances Carfax’s trail.

He’d almost drifted off himself when a young lady knelt next to them and attracted his attention with a discreet cough.

“Excuse me,” she said in a London accent that he could place within a few streets (Sherlock could probably give you the exact address). “Are you John Watson?” She looked tremendously relieved when he nodded. “I work at the British Embassy. And it’s my day off. And, er.” She handed him her phone in its sparkly blue case. “It’s for you.”

He goggled at her. “What?”

“Just take it.” She gave him a pleading look. “ _Please_.”

He sat up and took the mobile from her, trying his best not to look too suspicious. He had a pretty shrewd idea as to who was on the other end of the line. “Hello, Mycroft.”

“Doctor Watson, please give the phone to my brother.”

John did not mean to be difficult, but he had long held the belief that a trial here and there would be good for Mycroft’s soul, assuming he had one of those. _Providing_ those trials was certainly good for his own. “And why would I do that?”

“Because I will conduct this conversation over the facility’s loudspeakers, if necessary. Surely you see why this would be preferable?”

The terrible thing was that John did. He supposed you could only set up so many road blocks for the British government.

“Sherlock?" He prodded him gently on the shoulder. "It’s--”

“Mycroft, of course. Fussy and self-important, then, though I hesitate to use the word 'fool'. What’s he done, threatened to talk to me over the sound system? I thought so. Give it here.” Sherlock held his hand out for the phone, not even opening his eyes. “I’ll be in London in eighteen hours,” he snapped, once he’d brought the phone to his ear. “Can’t this wait?” This was quickly followed by, “No, I will _not_ get on your private jet, if it was really urgent, you would have sent people to collect us. I will _enjoy_ flying coach, and look forward to the layover at Narita _and_ the in-flight meals.” He got to his feet with annoyance written on every line of his body, and stalked off, presumably to be colossally rude on the phone without being colossally rude to everyone else in the room.

“So that’s actually Sherlock Holmes,” said the woman, watching him go.

“Yes.”

“And you’re actually Doctor John H. Watson.”

“Yes. Yes, that’s me.”

“I like your blog,” she said, brightening up. “Thought you’d be taller, but I really like your blog. _The Aluminium Crutch_ was my favorite.”

“Oh. Thanks.” John gave her what he hoped was a friendly grin. He was quite proud of his blog (especially considering how it had started) and liked that people enjoyed it, but he was never certain how to handle actual people telling him so. “Nice of you to say so.”

“Yeah, I read it sometimes, when it’s slow at work.” She tapped her well-manicured fingers on her knees. Then, when it became apparent that Sherlock wasn’t coming back in the immediate future, she said, “Er, I will be getting my mobile back, right?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you miss me?
> 
> Well, probably not, since I've been writing other things, though I've not really been significantly active since, oh, the end of Series 3, but here I am again.
> 
> I've been sitting on this fic ever since I finished _The Seduction of John S. Willoughby_ , but it never really took off. The Korean spa was always there (because _The Illustrious Client_ starts with Holmes and Watson swathed in sheets at a Turkish bath, _how_ can you pass that up), but I didn't know how to go on from there. First, there was no John/Sherlock problem to work out, then there was no Kitty Winter, then there was a lot of stressing over how to do that bit with the special-order coffin...in short, I never felt clever enough to make it work.
> 
> AND THEN.
> 
> This fic is going to politely ignore the events of _The Final Problem_ , as well as the existence of Rosie and Euros because 1) I'm not clever enough to write children and 2) they apparently didn't know what to do with them in canon either. (I'm sorry, I have a lot of feelings right now, and this is what I'm doing with them).
> 
> Anyway, if you'd like me to rage-write you a case fic, or porn (bizarre or otherwise), or something where I try to be funny, [you can bid on me in the Fandom Trumps Hate auction here](https://fandomtrumpshateofferings.tumblr.com/tagged/tepidspongebath) (I think I'm currently going for about the price of a meal for two at the Chinese place next to where I work, or the fee for a Michigan driver's license). It's for a good cause - a number of good causes - up to and including sticking up a middle finger at the state of the world and telling it that we will not stand for the way things are going. (Sorry, I have lots of feelings about this as well, and it is not the best idea in the world to let me on the internet when I have this many feelings.)
> 
> I'm also [jamesphillimoresumbrella](https://jamesphillimoresumbrella.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr, if you'd like to say hi ~~even after I've spewed my feelings all over you~~. I'd love to hear from you there!


	2. "Do you remember Violet Merville?" - Holmes Family Obligations - "No, thanks. I can manage."

She did get her phone back.

Sherlock returned it, sparkly blue case and all, with surprisingly good grace, though he shut down the nearly-voiced request for a selfie by the simple expedient of laying back down on the beautifully warm floor, closing his eyes, and refusing to budge. Or, for that matter, speak. He was apparently not going to allow his brother to impinge on the pleasant lassitude of the baths any more than he already had.

John approved. Or at least he did up until the point when Sherlock refused to budge until the last possible second, and they ended up having to haphazardly throw their own clothes on (no time to be embarrassed by letting it all hang out), and, Sherlock’s powers of taxi-summoning notwithstanding, run - _run_ \- through the airport to make it to their gate just after the last call for passengers to Narita. It wasn’t until they were in their seats with the plane taxiing down the runway that John noticed his jumper was inside out and that Sherlock’s buttons were all askew. From the way his hands were moving beneath the blanket on his lap, John assumed Sherlock’s fly had been left undone as well.

Of course, Sherlock noticed where he was looking.

“You know it was worth it,” he said, pulling his elegant hands back into view and smoothing the blanket over his thighs.

“God help me, I do.” John looked down at the seam of his jumper, somewhat frustrated in the knowledge that he’d have to wait for the pilots to turn off the fasten seat belt sign before he could do anything about it. “You’ve spoiled me for life, you know. I’ll never look at baths the same way again. Or floors.”

Sherlock smiled as he began to work on his buttons. “Good.”

* * *

 Mycroft was already waiting in the flat when they finally got to 221B Baker Street, leaning on his umbrella and silhouetted dramatically against one of the front room windows. John wondered if he’d been standing like that the entire time, or if he’d struck the pose for maximum effect when he heard them getting out of the cab.

“You took your time,” he said, by way of greeting.

“Oh, you know what airport security’s like.” Sherlock wheeled his case over to the fireplace, collapsed the handle, and flopped down in his chair without even removing his coat, the very image of a weary (incredibly posh) traveler.

Having dropped his backpack by the door, John followed suit, though not as elegantly, collapsing onto the other armchair and stretching his legs out in front of him. He’d be the first to admit that they weren’t very long, but the leg room on commercial flights was limited even for him - around ten hours in, he’d started to wonder how much space there was between the seats on that private jet and if the ride would have been worth the strings that came attached to it. Perhaps not, he thought, flexing his feet and feeling the stretch in his calves. Either way, it was good to be home. Sort of. He checked his watch and gave himself fifteen minutes.

“I am familiar with the theory.” Mycroft grimaced and shifted his umbrella so he could go to stand more comfortably by the desk. Far be it for him to sit in the clients’ chair. “Which is why I sent the private plane. Fortunately, with MJN Air’s rates, it wasn’t too much of a waste, and there was a mildly errant CFO we needed to collect a few hours later - I understand this made the steward happy, for some reason. Now, to business: I have a case for you, brother mine.”

“I already have a case. Come back next week, I might be free by then.”

“The Carfax woman with the blog? You already know she’s back in London.”

“Yes, but not _where_ in London. Technically, she’s still missing.”

“Immaterial at this point, in a case that was mere trivia to begin with,” said Mycroft, dismissing the whole matter with the slightest twitch of a finger. “Do you remember Violet Merville?”

Sherlock looked like he might not dignify that with an answer until he caught John’s quizzical expression. “Daughter of a family friend,” he explained. “Eva Merville, one of the professors our mother knew from the university, I believe she’s the first name listed in the acknowledgments of _The Dynamics of Combustion_. She used to bring Violet to visit us, we used to visit them. I recall a paddling pool. And tea parties.”

“Ah.” John tried not to imagine what a children’s tea party with the Holmes boys might be like. There were probably pretend eyeballs in the teacups. “And what’s happened to her?”

“Two weeks ago, she broke off her two-year engagement to an upstanding gentleman, and has since taken up with someone entirely unsuitable whom she intends to marry before the month is out. As I understand it, either incident on its own would have been tolerable, but as they both occurred within days of a yachting trip in the Mediterranean where both men were present...” The face Mycroft made didn’t indicate his disgust at this situation; rather it showed how reprehensible it was that he’d become involved in any capacity. “Her mother is distraught, therefore _our_ mother is in a similar state. She asked me to do something about it, and, since it fits in so well with the little puzzles you like, I’m bringing the problem to you. This is a case you can’t turn down, Sherlock. Consider it a family obligation.”

“I might refuse it yet.” Sherlock looked at his brother sharply. “Why do _you_ care?”

“Because most marriages, while unfortunate, will not drag a large financial institution - along with several individuals who are currently necessary for our nation to function - into scandal and bankruptcy when they ultimately meet their end. Checks and balances exist to prevent this, of course, but I’d rather avoid the mess entirely. Miss Merville is the current president of Shad Sanderson.”

John sat up. Even if it hadn’t been one of the biggest names in finance, it was hard to forget the start of a case that had led to you and your date almost being murdered with a giant crossbow. “The investment bank?”

“Yes. Very astute of you, John.”

The sarcasm there had been laid on with a trowel, but John knew better than to take personal offense at this point. It was simply a byproduct of how Mycroft thought of all those of lesser intellect, i.e. everyone else on the planet. He checked his watch again. Five minutes.

“Still boring.” Sherlock had let his head drop onto the back of his chair and was addressing his remarks to the ceiling.

“She will not listen to her family, her colleagues, or her friends.” Mycroft said the word as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. “And her ex is defying all conventions of melodrama, and says that he respects her wishes and only wants her to be happy.”

“ _Mind-numbingly_ boring.”

“Her current fiance is Albert Gruner.” There was the briefest of pauses then, “Ah, I see I’ve finally piqued your interest.”

Sherlock pursed his lips, clearly annoyed that he’d been caught. “I’ll think about it.”

“Think faster, little brother.” He picked up his umbrella and turned to John, who, having looked at his watch one final time, was already on his feet and adjusting his jacket. “I suppose I owe you an apology for interrupting your holiday. I can have Anthea drop you at Queen Anne Street.”

John smiled thinly at him and picked up his bag. “No, thanks. I can manage. See you, Sherlock. I’ll come round tomorrow with the souvenirs for Mrs. Hudson after I unpack.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _**Next:** Managing_
> 
>  
> 
> I know it's supposed to be OJS Air now, but...come fly the friendly skies...


	3. Managing

John did manage. That was the word, wasn’t it? He managed, and was, by now, quite good at it. He managed to get a cab after a few minutes of standing damply in the London rain, managed to find his keys while standing awkwardly on the doorstep because he’d forgotten to look for them in the cab where it was dry, managed to make himself a late-night cup of tea, and, after sorting through the clothes that had _not_ risen up in rebellion while he was gone, he managed to make a start on the laundry as well.

As the washer hummed and sloshed in the corner, he filled the laundry hamper again with the things from his backpack and the airplane-smelling clothes he was wearing. It was harder not to dwell on the fact that the last time he had dressed - and undressed - was in Sherlock’s company, with Sherlock doing the exact same thing, but John managed that too, in the end. It was easier to fish out the little knickknacks he’d bought for Mrs. Hudson without feeling guilty that he hadn’t got his new landlady so much as a keychain. In his dressing gown, he arranged the souvenirs in a handy paper bag while his tea cooled on the kitchen table.

And, having done that, he managed not to use that as a flimsy excuse to rush back to 221B, based on the thinner reasoning that Mrs. Hudson wouldn’t appreciate being woken up at 2 in the morning, souvenirs or no souvenirs. He made himself another cup of tea.

Yes. He muddled through. He coped. He _managed_.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _**Next** : Mrs. Hudson's Souvenirs - "_Nearly _the Most Dangerous Man" - Frances Carfax_


	4. Mrs. Hudson's Souvenirs - Clutter

Somewhere in there, John managed to get some sleep as well, though he’d be the first to admit that he did it badly.

Mrs. Hudson hadn’t actually asked for souvenirs. She had, however, looked wistful when she’d learned where John was going, and before the taxi had whisked him away, he heard her telling Sherlock that she wouldn’t have minded going on such a trip if it hadn’t been for her damn hip. Picking up a few things for her in between asking questions for Sherlock (and, on more than one occasion, holding up a phone so that Sherlock could ask questions himself) felt like the least he could do.

When he set out for Baker Street at a proper human hour the next morning - or, more precisely, on the same morning, but when the sun was up - the paper bag he carried contained a painted fan, a set of chopsticks in a case with elephants on it, a purple scarf she might actually be able to use, and a humorous wooden man in a barrel. (The spring-loaded humorous bit happened when you lifted the barrel up. John had been ever so slightly shocked when he tried it to see what the joke was, but had also instantly known that Mrs. Hudson would love it. She would probably take it next door to show Mrs. Turner.) But when he got there, Mrs. Hudson was on her way out. She had, she explained, signed up for a class on knife handling.

“But don’t worry, dear, it’s only kitchen knives,” she said, catching John’s expression.

“Ah.”

“Yes, the self-defense class was last week, and they didn’t even let us have real ones.” She took the bag from him before he dropped it and set it on a chair by the door. “Thank you very much, I’m sure they’re lovely and I’ll look at them when I get back. Is that a man in a barrel?”

“It is, yes.”

“That’s nice. I expect he’ll be more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Do you take him out of the barrel?”

“Um, no. You take the barrel off of him.”

“I see.” She tried the barrel, found she couldn’t pull it up more than about half an inch without taking it out of the bag, and pushed it back down again. “I’ll try that later. Why don’t you go on upstairs? I left Sherlock a plate of those biscuits you like. You can help yourself if he’s not back yet, but I think I heard him come in.”

There was a clatter from upstairs, as of someone tripping over a suitcase that was not so carefully placed as one might like.

“Oh, there he is.” Mrs. Hudson squeezed John’s arm. “Up you go then.”

It wasn’t quite a wink and a nudge, but it was close. John didn’t really have the heart to argue the point anymore. He wished her good luck with the knives, reminding her not to cut off any fingers, especially her own, and climbed the stairs to the first floor flat.

‘Disarray’ would be a kind word to describe the state of 221B on any given day, but the clutter was outdoing itself now. Without John to beat back the edges, Sherlock had allowed the mess to take on a life of its own, letting it take over nearly half of the floor and part of the sofa and the sides of the stairs going up to what used to be John's room. It was a _clean_ mess, if you could allow for such a thing, because Mrs. Hudson came in to dust it off without actually moving anything around, though she did suggest that she should start charging it rent since it was occupying a considerable amount of space and seemed to be growing like an extra-large cellular slime mold. The two armchairs by the fireplace were always clear, however, as was the table or, rather, the demilitarized zone on the table that was reserved for the tea tray. (The pile of papers on the clients’ chair could be shoved off and replaced as needed.)

Looking at the clutter-mold in the clear light of day, John wondered how Mycroft had managed to pick his way through it last night. Or perhaps Mycroft hadn’t been there at all. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find out that the British government could conduct conversations via holograms of a somewhat better class than Princess Leia’s.

What did surprise him was Sherlock surfacing from the far reaches of the mess, clutching a handful of newspaper clippings and a box of colored pushpins.

“Good, you’re back,” he said, as if John had just taken longer than usual to get the milk. “I need your help with Albert Gruner.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The barrel man is a rather rude Philippine souvenir figurine thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel_man_\(novelty\)). I thought it was the sort of thing Mrs. Hudson would enjoy.
> 
>  _ **Next** : "_Nearly _the Most Dangerous Man" - Frances Carfax_


	5. "Nearly the Most Dangerous Man" - Frances Carfax

“And who is Albert Gruner?” asked John, making his way to his chair via the more or less ( _more of less_ ) clear path leading there. When it came to it, he wasn’t sure how _he’d_ managed to navigate the floor last night.

“Have a biscuit, John. Mrs. Hudson made them for you specially - she was expecting you, for some reason.”

John took a small buttery biscuit from the plate. “Albert Gruner, Sherlock?” he prompted.

“The most dangerous man we have ever faced.”

John felt the corners of his mouth turning up despite himself. He liked the ‘we’ - he remembered a time when Sherlock wouldn’t have used the ‘we’ - but he nevertheless spotted a small flaw in the reasoning there. “After Moriarty?”

“Well, yes.” Sherlock crossed to the far wall by way of the coffee table and started looking for a good spot for the first newspaper clipping. He was holding a particularly shiny pin.

“Remember what Mrs. Hudson said about using pins on the wall. And after Magnussen too?”

“Mmm, him too.” Sherlock sighed theatrically and reached down for a roll of Sellotape.

“And Culverton Smith?”

“ _Nearly_ the most dangerous man.”

“That bloke with the chainsaw last month?”

“Decidedly dangerous, but not a long-term contender, especially since you dealt with him with a well-administered half-brick.”

“What about Irene Adler?”

“She’s in a class of her own, and any comparisons to her would be ultimately unfair. And I did say ‘man’.” Sherlock waited for a while, as if he expected another name to be added to this litany of villains. When none was forthcoming, he stuck his clipping to the wall. It was a small one, from the inner pages of a newspaper. John thought he recognized the shapes of the word ‘Tragic’ and ‘Accident’ in the headline. “Gruner’s last wife was a wealthy heiress who supposedly died in his arms after a skiing accident at a Swiss resort six years ago. He murdered her - I couldn’t be more certain if I’d been there to see it myself - but the law couldn’t make anything stick. I followed the story in the papers: witnesses changed their stories, the physical evidence was found to have been dubiously obtained or hopelessly circumstantial, and of course there was popular _sentiment_.”

“I think I remember hearing about that on the telly, actually. They made him out to be a grieving widower unfairly accused of the tragedy that was ruining his life.”

“It helped that he looked so good on the front page, _and_ that he gave interviews to anyone who asked, which was everyone.” Sherlock made a face as he unfurled a much larger piece of paper: the cover of a tabloid, mostly filled by a photograph of a handsome man who had somehow contrived to look sorrowful and brave at the same time. You couldn’t have found better on a movie poster. “And after the debacle of a trial, Le Brun, the leading detective, was seriously injured in a supposedly unrelated mugging. She’ll never walk again, as Gruner was so kind to remind me.”

“He reminded you!” John dropped his biscuit.

“Yes, when I saw him at his house this morning. Mycroft gave me the address.”

John looked at his watch, brushing crumbs from his lap. It should, perhaps, have bothered him that he knew exactly what time he left Baker Street last night. “I left you alone for _nine hours_. Five of those were before sunrise.”

“Yes. Nine hours and seventeen minutes. Plenty of time for me to get into trouble, don’t you think?”

“It clearly was. And you’d just got off a plane!”

“The bedroom upstairs _is_ still free, if you feel the need to mind me.” Sherlock said it lightly enough. The subject had become something of a running joke between them, though John would have truly been an idiot if he didn’t pick up on the hopeful undertones there.

He responded in kind, “And Mrs. Hudson needs the rent like she needs a second Aston Martin. My landlady drives a Ford Fiesta.”

“Mrs. Hudson could always use the money for petrol. You know how she drives.”

“As good a reason as any not to let her have the petrol.” John couldn’t look Sherlock in the eye when he said that. It was about as definite as he got, and he didn’t know what he’d see there or what would show on his own face, when it came to that. Changing the subject abruptly and completely was the only way to go. “So how did it go? With Gruner?”

“It went as well as you might expect,” said Sherlock, absently sticking a few more newspaper photos to the wall. “I told him to back off, he told me to do the same. In hindsight, it may not have been the wisest move” --he ignored John’s snort of indignation-- “but I wanted to see him in person. You know I work best when I meet my man eye to eye and read for myself the stuff he’s made of.”

“And it had nothing to do with wanting to get Mycroft off your back as soon as possible?”

“Maybe. But I have the measure of Gruner now, and, much as it pains me to admit it, I’m glad to have had my attention called to him. To solve crime is important, but to prevent it from happening at all is more so. More challenging, too. Remember your wedding?”

“You know I do. Sholto’s doing well, by the way.”

“So you keep saying. How many letters have you had from him - three?”

“Four, actually. Nice to know you’re keeping count.” And they really were letters, short ones on paper, that he got in the mail. Sholto wasn’t keen on computers, and John liked seeing his neat, blocky handwriting. “This woman - Viola? - really is in danger, then?”

“Violet, John. Violet Merville - God knows I’ve tried to delete the name, but Mum keeps bringing her up - and the danger is very real. Men like Gruner don’t settle down to play happy families. You should have seen him! He didn’t threaten me, he didn’t bluster, he was infernally polite - the superficial suggestion of afternoon tea with all the cruelty of the grave behind it.” And there it was. Sherlock abhorred sentimentality in all its forms and would laugh in the face of anyone who tried to talk to him about ethics, but he waxed poetic when faced with a criminal whom he felt morally obliged to catch. It did more than tug at John’s heartstrings: it yanked on them and played them like a bloody organic harp. “He will ruin her, if he doesn’t kill her. I don’t like her, but she doesn’t deserve that.”

Sherlock’s phone gave a soft _ping_ in the silence that followed. John took it from the mantelpiece.

“I’ll help, however I can. Just tell me how. But I have to ask,” he said, peering at the phone, “what about Frances Carfax? It looks like you’ve got five messages from Susan Dobney asking if you have anything on her.”

“Frances Carfax is an intelligent, independent woman in her forties who knows her way around the world, even if she is more than slightly obsessed with knitting patterns. You only need to look at her blog to come to that conclusion. And we know for certain that she made it back to London. Mycroft was right, yet again.” Sherlock taped another article to the wall with particular vehemence, an act that would admittedly have been better punctuated with a pin. “With any luck, she’ll get in touch with Miss Dobney after she sleeps off the jet lag.”

* * *

Frances Carfax had a backpack you could fit a small city in, if you used the outside pockets, and lifting it into overhead compartments was a process that might have required the use of a crane. She also had a smaller bag that could generously be called a handbag but could, without resorting to prevarication, also be described as a small suitcase. It was the sort of thing that Mary Poppins might have pulled a potted palm and a 3-piece bedroom set out of, and just managed to fit under the seats of most commercial airplanes.

When she’d started out two months ago, the handbag and a lot of the backpack had been stuffed full of yarn. She had meant to return with them stuffed full of socks. That was the whole point of her blog, _The Traveling Socks:_ she went places and made socks and she blogged about it.

Only that hadn’t quite worked out on this jaunt to Asia. Oh, the trip itself hadn’t been horrible - not even counting that one time when her flight had been delayed because they couldn’t find the pilots - but she did hate all this _connectivity_. A few short years ago, it would have been possible for her to remain blissfully ignorant of goings-on when she left the country, but, she thought pragmatically, wishing for a simpler time wouldn’t do her any good. Her blog would have been impossible, for one thing, and frankly her finding out about the dreadful thing upon returning home wouldn’t have made it any less dreadful.

But between one thing and the next, it was good to be back. If London had had an anthropomorphic personification, Frances would have kissed it in sloppy, open-mouthed exuberance for the sheer joy of being home, even after needing to do battle for a taxi outside the airport. As it was, she stopped at a cafe near her flat for a much-needed cup of coffee before having to deal with rooms that had been un-lived in for two months made her ever so slightly less in love with her homecoming. Her backpack had a seat to itself, and her handbag took up most of the table.

Now, the first order of business was to text Susan to say that yes, everything was all right now, sorry for making her worry, she just had to work a few things out, sorry that meant disappearing off the face of the earth for a while, she’d explain all of it, would she like to meet up for coffee now that she was back, or maybe tea?

It was a lot to say in a text, especially if you haven’t been answering calls or messages for an embarrassingly long period of time. She finished her coffee before she was done with the message, and was still typing as she walked to her flat. She took the shortcut through the alley (it was fine, it was broad daylight, she’d done it a million times before, and, oh god, she just wanted to get home), and was just about to turn the corner onto her street _and_ finally send the damn thing when someone tapped her on the shoulder.

“Oh, hello,” she said, more shocked than annoyed, but only just. When you gave passing acquaintances your mailing address, you expected postcards, not an actual person showing up on your doorstep. “I thought you weren’t coming to Lond--”

There were fumes. Memories of frogs and dissecting pans surfaced and were quickly subsumed by outrage over the fact that someone in the twenty-first century was actually using formaldehyde when there were vastly less unpleasant ways to knock a person out with chemicals.

Someone caught the phone before it fell from her nerveless fingers.

 


End file.
